EVERYBODY FOOLED: CBS used a photo of the alleged girlfriend for a story the morning of the national title game. (
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It is the type of story America loves.

The college football star — who just happens to play for the nation’s most-celebrated college football program — overcoming adversity, including the deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend either hours or days apart — depending who was writing the story — during what would become a magical season.

The very next Saturday, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, recording 12 tackles. Led by Te’o, who finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting, the Irish would go undefeated during the regular season before being undressed by Alabama, 42-14, in this month’s national championship game.

Yes, it’s the kind of story America loves, and now, it appears, much of it was a lie. There is no dead girlfriend. Dead? She never existed, according to Deadspin.com, and yesterday Te’o and Notre Dame hustled to make sure everyone knew the linebacker was the victim of the hoax and not the source.

Deadspin posted an exhaustive debunking of the Te’o myth yesterday afternoon, pointing out many of the inconsistencies in his heartbreaking narrative that had been detailed by news organizations such as Sports Illustrated, CBS News, the South Bend Tribune and The Post.

* The young woman, who Te’o said was named Lennay Marie Kekua, not only didn’t die of leukemia — which was said to have been discovered after she was badly injured in an automobile accident last year — but never was alive.

* Te’o’s maternal grandmother, Annette Santiago, did pass away last Sept. 11 at the age of 72 in Hawaii. But the website could find no death certificate for Kekua. Nor a birth certificate. Nor was there any record of her attending Stanford University, from which she was said to have graduated and where Teo and Kekua were said to have met following a 2009 game.

* The hoax was perpetrated by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a high school classmate of the woman whose picture, unbeknownst to her, was used on social media and identified as Kekua. Deadspin also said Te’o and Tuiasosopo definitely know each other. Last June, Te’o wished Tuiasosopo a happy birthday on Twitter.

* Manti and Ronaiah are family,” said a woman contacted by Deadspin, “or at least family friends.” She told the website Tuiasosopo had been an on-field guest for the Nov. 24 Notre Dame-USC game in Los Angeles — a fact confirmed by USC — but it is not known whose guest he was. A tweet from Tuiasosopo’s since-deleted account suggests he and Te’o saw each other on that West Coast trip. “Great night with my bro @MTeo_5! #Heisman #574L,” Tuiasosopo tweeted on Nov. 23, the night before the game.

* Tuiasosopo had been in a car accident a month before the crash Kekua was said to have been involved in. A friend of Tuiasosopo told the website he was “80 percent sure” Te’o was “in on it,” and the two perpetrated the story with publicity in mind. According to the friend, there were numerous photos of Tuiasosopo and Te’o together on Tuiasosopo’s now-deleted Instagram account.

Te’o was celebrated throughout the football season, not only for his considerable talents — he is projected as a top-10 pick in April’s NFL Draft — but for his ability to soldier on in the midst of such grief.

Early last night he released a statement.

“This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online,” the statement read. “We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her.

“To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.’’

Neither Te’o nor the university disclosed why they had kept a lid on the information until Deadspin’s report surfaced.

At a press conference in South Bend., Ind., last night, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said Te’o received a phone call while he was in Orlando, Fla., to receive a postseason award from a number he recognized as “one he associated with Kekua” and was told she was not dead. Te’o said it sounded like the same voice he had talked to when he believed he was speaking to Kekua.

“Manti was very unnerved by that, as you might imagine,” Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said he met with Te’o Dec. 27, and Te’o shared with him the details of the relationship. The university then hired a firm to investigate the case, receiving a final report on Jan. 4, which he said the school won’t release.

Swarbrick said the university did not go to the police, leaving it up to Te’o and his family to do so. He said he believed the family was going to make his story public next week.

“Our investigators through their work were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that is sort of the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking, the sort of casualness with which among themselves they were referring to what they had accomplished and what they had done,” Swarbrick said.

He also said there were “several meetings” set up between Te’o and Kekua, but Kekua never showed. Swarbrick also said the emotions and feelings shared publicly by Te’o about Kekua were genuine.

“Every single thing about this was real to Manti,” the AD said. “The grief was real, the affection was real, and that’s the sad nature of this cruel game.”

Earlier Swarbrick had said, “nothing I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te’o one iota.”

In an October interview with ESPN, Te’o described Kekua as “the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met” and called her “the love of my life” even though, as he revealed in his statement, their relationship occurred online and by phone.

Further complicating things last night was Arizona Cardinals fullback Reagan Mauia, who said he was friends with Kekua.

“This was before her and Manti,” Mauia told ESPN. “I don’t think Manti was even in the picture, but she and I became good friends. … I am close to her family.”

He described her as tall.

“Volleyball-type of physique,” Mauia said. “ She was athletic, tall, beautiful. Long hair. Polynesian. She looked like a model.”

Swarbrick said Te’o may address the situation as soon as today, but last night, the 21-year-old linebacker held fast to the party line he had nothing to do with the hoax.

“To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick.” Te’o said in his statement. “I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.’’